Video role-playing games, adapted for computers from their pen-and-paper forebears, have been around since the earliest days of digital gaming. Despite initial similarities to Western games, Japan's output began diverging in dramatic ways, inspired by its own culture and art, producing a style of game that's often wildly different from its Western counterpart. From Dragon Quest to Final Fantasy, from Megami Tensei to Pokémon, A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games explores the expansive history of Japanese role-playing games, beginning on 8-bit microcomputers, and following them all the way up to the heavy hitters of the modern era.

Created in collaboration with author Kurt Kalata, A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games is an ambitious project that aims to cover the entire history of Japanese role-playing games from 1982 to 2020.